


Lights (they blind me)

by Flightless_Bird



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Infinity War, Language, Love Confessions, Other, Protective Jarvis, Spoilers, Stephen Knows, Telepathy, Violence, What if Jarvis had still been with tony on Titan?, battle on titan, mild telepathy, no deaths here though!, references to suicide/sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 15:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18593995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flightless_Bird/pseuds/Flightless_Bird
Summary: “Who,” Thanos asked slowly, “is Jarvis?”Ignoring the shouted thoughts of protest, JARVIS accessed the armor’s voice speakers. “If y— kill him, I will self-dest—ct the armor.”





	Lights (they blind me)

**Author's Note:**

> This idea hit me like a freight train after rewatching Infinity War.  
> I guess in this au, Vision exists independently of JARVIS, who remained with Tony for the Titan battle.  
> Feedback is greatly appreciated, and thank you for reading! :)  
> Title inspired by lyrics of “Electra Heart.”

“ _I'm engaging emergency protocol!”_ JARVIS announced through the suit, as another fist cracked into the side of the armor.

Tony grunted, staggering to his knees. “Don't you fucking dare, Jarvis!” he snapped. He swung around, aimed, and fired off a set of rockets from his right arm. They met Thanos in a blast of fire, blooming vermillion off the face of Titan. Tony’s breaths came heavy and labored behind the faceplate. “We gotta beat this son of a bitch, we don't have a choice right now.”

“ _Sir, please,”_ JARVIS responded as calmly as he could. “ _I have been running scans and processing his fighting technique since we've arrived here and the chances are astronomically—”_

“I get it, bud, I really do!” Tony braced himself up on his elbows as a shout of rage echoed from within the cloud of debris. As he watched, the swirl of flame and cloud whirled backward, coalescing around a golden gauntlet.

Somewhere within the circuitry, JARVIS hummed as he shivered. “ _Sir_.”

“You do _not_ fly me off this planet, J, do you hear me?” Tony said lowly.

The ball of explosion raced toward him with a clench of Thanos’ fist. And Tony—brilliant, beautiful Tony—stood to his feet and fired back. JARVIS activated his shield for him, extending it out of his chest inside of his arms; it caught the brunt of the blow, the pieces that weren't destroyed in Tony’s repulser blasts. But then Thanos’ great arm was reaching from the haze of smoke.

Fingers clenched around their headpiece and tore it off with a screech of metal. For two blinding milliseconds, Tony faced Thanos with wide eyes. “ _Tony_!” JARVIS produced another helmet from the armor’s reserves, pulling from a legpiece.

Mouth set in a grim line, Thanos kept coming. His next punch landed them on the ground, then back up, sending a small battering ram at his face. He took it, backhanded it straight from the suit. Tony pulled on the helmet’s metal in his mind, erasing it and using the resource to power his free arm repulser. Thanos blocked the energy bullet with the gauntlet and then caught the next blow from Tony’s other arm.

_Jarvis, now!_

JARVIS set off the armor’s circuitry and sent seven-thousand volts of electricity straight through Thanos’ body. His roar of pain felt like _lightning_.

Jerking and gritting his teeth, Thanos curled his hand into a fist and pushed the shock back to its source.

It was the first inkling of what pain felt like and JARVIS _screamed_.

Tony’s terror and rage sliced through their consciousness in a hurricane. The last bit of leg armor receded up into their arm, forming a wicked blade. Tony wrenched it free and drove it home—

Into Thanos’ fist. He had it disconnected from the suit in one second.

And it pierced like molten metal straight through Tony’s stomach.

The sound he made brought everything crashing to a halt. JARVIS whirred within the armor, assessed the damage, their data, their pitiful odds, assess and panic, and panic, and panic. He too was glitching, clinging to scraps of metal and electricity. “ _S—Sir, we are—dam—ged.”_

“‘M aware of that,” Tony bit out. Blood was welling up, threatening his throat.

Thanos, looming over them, cocked his head. He was panting. Good. “Who are you speaking to, Mr. Stark?” he asked softly.

“None of your god—” Tony gasped for air, fingers clutching the blade within him. “—damned business.”

Thanos’ eyes flickered with dark curiosity. JARVIS wanted to shrink within the suit, activate emergency evacuation, but there wasn't enough left. “ _I'm—fraid—”_ he managed, intending more.

“Go into dormant mode,” Tony hissed. Annoyed with being ignored, Thanos pressed the blade in deeper, drawing out a breathless whimper.

“ _No—cannot do—at. I w—l stay.”_

“Dammit, Jarvis.”

“Who,” Thanos asked slowly, “is Jarvis?”

Ignoring the shouted thoughts of protest, JARVIS accessed the armor’s voice speakers. “ _If y— kill him, I will self-dest—ct the armor.”_

Thanos’ gaze lit with interest, and Tony shut his eyes. “Artificial intelligence. And here I thought you had some sort of desperate backup waiting.” Chuckling, he grasped Tony’s head, tipped it back so he had to make eye contact. “Are you so alone in your knowledge that you must create something to bear it with you? I suppose I can understand that.” He hummed in thought, examining the gleam of the gauntlet.

“No, you don't,” Tony choked out, and Thanos laughed.

“Oh, how touching. You've fallen far, Tony Stark, if you've found such attachment for a piece of metal.”

“ _Sir_.” JARVIS spoke through the earpiece once more, shutting Thanos from his words. “ _We —re dying_.”

“I know,” Tony breathed.

“ _I meant it. —will destroy the—rmor, if yo— gone.”_

“Good, give ‘im hell, J.”

Thanos seemed all too amused with them to interrupt, simply watching with this slight smile on his face and oh, they wanted to _end him._

_“—m not metal, T—ny. I am m—re, what you mad— me.”_

Tony’s heart rate was picking up, a mixture of fear and something anguishing. He could no longer send his thoughts and will back through the suit’s system, in its state. So he had to whisper between bloodstained coughs, “I know, baby. I know.”

“ _Tony, d—n’t.”_

Tony lifted a trembling hand and rested it over the chest plate, over the glow of the Arc Reactor. His fingers tapped over it, quiet between them. _Thank you_.

“ _Any—ing for y—”_

_Love you._

_“Pl—se, I can't—”_

“Wait, stop!”

All three of them froze, a look of satisfaction passing over Thanos’ face. Tony struggled to turn his head and saw Doctor Strange, crumpled and bloodied. He was staring at them through raw, blue eyes, and somehow JARVIS knew he'd heard. “Spare them,” Stephen rasped. “And I will give you the Time Stone.”

Thanos’ eyebrows raised and he straightened. “‘Them?’ You are most intriguing, Doctor.”

“I will give you the Stone,” Stephen repeated firmly. He swallowed, looking as though he had to fight back emotion. “But only if you let Tony Stark live.”

Tony tilted his head back, grimacing in pain and wanting to strangle that sorcerer. “Blow the Arc Reactor,” he mumbled, as Thanos shifted to face Stephen.

“ _No_.”

“Do it, now.”

“ _No_.”

“Jarvis, _please_.”

Tony’s vision blacked for a second as Thanos pulled the blade free, facing Stephen fully. Collapsing to his knees, Tony pressed his hands over the wound andtried to summon up the will to make his armor _work_. Desperately, he grasped for its presence, to form a rocket, a bullet, to send the Reactor up in white-hot destruction.

It never came.

“Tony, Jarvis,” Stephen said suddenly, his hand outstretched to pluck the Stone from midair. He held it out to Thanos with shaking fingers, but his eyes were only for Tony. “It's okay.”

Tony groaned, the agony of the world splitting open currently in his chest. “Don't, Stephen.”

Stephen looked on in quiet acceptance as the Time Stone passed from his palm to Thanos’. The minute it had, the atmosphere seemed to shift and adjust around them, acknowledging the doom of it all. Thanos lifted the Stone to the gauntlet and observed with a slight smile as it ratcheted into place alongside the others. It thrummed along his veins in a long slide of power.

He looked to Tony for a moment, contemplating something, but didn't speak. Instead, he opted to open the yawning portal behind him and vanish inside. It snapped shut, leaving Titan in unbearable, final silence.

Tony bowed his head, trying and failing to hold back the frustrated tears. Stiffly, he accessed his remaining coolant system and sealed the wound in his abdomen with careful strokes. It hurt like utter hell, but this would have to do for now. Besides, maybe it wouldn't matter in the aftermath of whatever Thanos wreaked upon them.

“ _Sir_?” JARVIS glitched to him. “— _m sorry.”_

Blowing out a shuddering exhale, Tony freed a hand from the armor to rub his eyes. “You didn't do it,” he said, hollow.

“— _couldn't_.”

“He's going to— Why the hell not, Jarvis?”

_“….”_

“Jarvis.”

“ _I —ove y— too.”_

Tony tensed, mind blanking for the second time since being stabbed through the fucking stomach.

JARVIS hurried to amend the mistake. “ _Pay it n— mind, Sir. —know I failed. I—_ ”

“Shut up, J.”

“…. _sorry?”_

“Jus’ shut up, J,” Tony murmured, closing his eyes and holding the Reactor in his hand. Its pulse, its life, the sure and steady electric heart beating behind it. The suitcradled his shoulders, humming with that same pulse. He didn't want to speak what had already been said. He didn't want to complicate anything.

Right now, as the world surely burned, he just wanted to hold and be held.


End file.
